Insomniac Games knows how to create imaginative weapons. It’s one of the developer’s calling cards. Go through the team’s body of work with the likes of Ratchet and Clank and the Resistance franchises, and players will see weapons like the… Continue Reading →

Insomniac Games knows how to create imaginative weapons. It’s one of the developer’s calling cards. Go through the team’s body of work with the likes of Ratchet and Clank and the Resistance franchises, and players will see weapons like the Auger, an alien firearm that shoots through walls, or the Chimp-o-Matic, a gun that turns targets into chimpanzees.

That same level of creativity is going into Fuse, a new IP from the Burbank-based developer. I had a chance to play the campaign of the four-player co-op game at a recent EA preview event. I played as Naya Devereaux, who is the stealth character of the group. In the short demo that players experienced, the group of misfit agents, Overstrike 9, are in the Karakoram Mountains in Pakistan, chasing after an organization called Raven that has taken these alien Fuse weapons.

Players take on 12 waves of enemies in the Echelon mode.

Immediately, as the team sneaks into position for an ambush, I felt that the game played a lot like the co-op from Resistance 2. Each of the four team members has a specific ability and a Fuse weapon, and they’ll have to down several foes to build up ammo for the alien weapon. The most obvious ability aside from my own was that of Jacob Kimble, who could create a shield that allies could hide and fire behind. It works sort of like the aforementioned Auger.

Teamwork isn’t an option; it’s a prerequisite because enemies in Fuse are tough. They take a lot of bullets to go down. I’m talking an obscene amount. Some of the heavies can absorb five minutes worth of punishment and still keep on pummeling teammates. Unaccustomed to the difficulty, my squad died on our first attempt.

Naya, right, can silently take out foes by going stealth and sneaking up behind them.

When it comes to the actual mechanics of fighting, Fuse does have a dedicated cover button. Each gun also has an alternate fire with the R2. Players can switch out most weapons via the D-pad, but they’ll always keep their Fuse weapon, which in my case was a Warp gun that creates a vortex that can wipe out a group of foes just as long as you keep your finger held on the trigger. Lastly, players have to stick close together when encounter heavies because they need to revive each other as needed. Thankfully, it doesn’t take that long to bring up a downed ally. Being stealth-based, Naya can often sneak behind foes and silently take them out with a melee attack.

Those technical elements and the third-person perspective will draw comparisons to Gears of War, but I have to emphasize that the combat feels more like Resistance 2. It’s the vibe I got from the outset. And it still continued even as I turned invisible with Naya and tried to flank foes taking cover in the Raven base’s small bungalows.

The other Fuse feature that was playable at the EA event was the Echelon mode, which is similar to a horde mode except it’s more focused on offense, according to Insomniac President Ted Price. The four-player squad will battle 12 waves of foes complete with minibosses and a big bad at the finale. Each wave is randomized though except for the bosses that come halfway and at the end.

Players will have to battle a minibosses and big boss in the Echelon mode.

Players will have to move forward attacking the enemies instead of waiting for them to arrive. Along the way, they’ll be trying to outdo each other’s score, something Price called “co-petitive.” They’ll fight over coins, bags and bars. The credits will go toward the unified progression system built into Fuse. That means progress made in this mode carries over to the single-player and vice versa. The Fuse Points will level up the characters while the Fuse Coins will be spent on team buffs and gear for the characters.

It’s an intriguing concept but I just wish the art style stood out more. To me, it looked fairly generic, resembling some of the work that Pandemic did with the Mercenaries series. But maybe Insomniac Games didn’t show enough of the demo for players to appreciate the depth in the combat and the leveling system. Players can perhaps get a better sense of Fuse as it moves closer to its launch date in March.

BONUS POINTS
Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to play Echelon. These big showcase events are often too large and too crowded for their own good and you have to prioritize, which games you want to see in the allotted time. I’m just thankful I had time to play the single-player campaign. The shame is that it’s hard to get a bead on how a game like this plays. Fifteen minutes isn’t a lot of time, plus I would have liked to play as the other characters and see how the different teammates’ powers combine. Basically, this was akin to eating an appetizer at a restaurant and trying to figure if it’ll be good or not. With Fuse it’s hard to say, but I do like where it’s going.